Love it or hate it, Windows 8 is a major departure from Microsoft's past interfaces. While previous versions of Windows kept mostly the same mouse-driven metaphor as their predecessors, even veteran Windows users may find the start of their Windows 8 experience a little disorienting.

For the average PC user, some of the changes may turn once routine tasks into frustrating excursions involving Windows 8's manifold gestures, especially if that average PC user is trying to use Windows 8 with a mouse. On the other hand, experiencing Windows 8 on a touch-capable device is somewhat more intuitive—but some basic aspects of the OS will still mystify many.

Don't panic. Here are the essential things you need to know to climb Windows 8's learning curve quickly—and, if you are so inclined, to make Windows 8 look a little more like that old Windows you knew so well. Once you've gotten past the distractions of the shiny animated Start page, you'll be productive in no time. And you can even make that Start screen go away if you want.

But before you start tearing Windows 8's new features out, let's walk through how to make them work.

First start

When you start up Windows 8 for the first time, you will be asked if you want to use a Microsoft account for log-in. The advantages of using such an account are that you gain access to Microsoft's SkyDrive cloud storage, can link other cloud services to your account, and can synchronize your preferences and browser bookmarks across multiple Windows 8 devices. If you have used SkyDrive or other Windows Live services in the past, you already have a Microsoft account.

This account doesn't have to use a Microsoft Hotmail or Outlook.com e-mail address—it can be configured with any e-mail address you have. (I've set up my wife's account with her Gmail account.) You also don't need to act on this immediately; you can add a Microsoft account later from Windows 8's PC Settings menu.

For the quickest start, you'll probably want to choose Windows 8's "express settings" during first start-up as well. All of these settings, like the Microsoft account, can be changed later, but the express settings provide the best mix of functionality and security for most people.

After you've set up your account, you arrive at the Start screen, the tile-based replacement for Windows' older Start menu. This is where things generally get…interesting. Once you've spent a few moments admiring (or cursing) the Start screen's animated "live" tiles for Windows 8's built-in apps, it's time to start finding your way around.

Charms

A great deal of what you'll need to do in Windows 8 happens through the "Charms" sidebar interface, a set of five icons that can be summoned on the right side of the screen from the Start screen or from within any application. You can bring up the Charms by hovering your mouse over the upper or lower right-hand corner of the screen, by pressing the Windows + C keys on your keyboard at the same time, or—on tablets and touchscreens—by swiping your finger from the right edge of the screen toward the center.

The five Charms: Search, Share, Start, Devices, and Settings.

Enlarge/ Search provides a context-sensitive search interface that varies based on what screen you're in. In the Start screen, you can use Search to find applications, specific PC settings (including things in Windows 8's Control Panel), and files.

Enlarge/ Share allows you to send content from a Windows 8 app to others through an e-mail account or social media.

Enlarge/ Devices gives you access to peripherals you can use with an application, such as printers and a second screen.

Enlarge/ Settings gives you access to application-specific settings , plus overall PC settings such as network connections, speaker volume, and turning the computer on and off.

And, of course, Start takes you back to the Start screen from any place in the operating system.

Start screen and Desktop

The Start screen is the main (but not the only) place to launch applications in Windows 8. Most Start screen tasks can be performed from the keyboard, with a mouse, or by touch; you can be pretty effective getting around the screen without ever letting your hands leave the keyboard.

The tiles on the Start screen are Windows 8's equivalent of Start menu shortcuts; click or touch one of them, and you launch your application. You can scroll the start screen right and left using the mouse scroll wheel, or by dragging your finger back and forth across the center of the screen. You can also use the arrow keys on the keyboard to move from tile to tile, then launch the highlighted application by hitting enter.

Enlarge/ Panning across the Start screen. There's also a scrollbar at the bottom of the start menu if your mouse lacks a scroll wheel.

You can also cut through all the clutter by typing the name of an application. As you start to type, the Start screen's search tool will automatically launch and present you with applications that match what you've typed.

Windows 8's built-in applications and those that you download from the Windows Store run full-screen using Windows 8's "Metro" interface. But applications written for earlier versions of Windows—which would be just about everything you currently use—run in Desktop, the slimmed-down version of the "classic" Windows environment, where most things look and act sort of like Windows 7.

Enlarge/ The Windows 8 Desktop interface looks (mostly) like the old Windows, minus the Start button menu. But there are ways of getting that back with add-on products.

There's no Start button in Desktop anymore (though you can install a number of applications that will create a Windows 7-like Start button and menu for you, such as Start8 or the free ClassicShell); if you move your mouse to where the button used to sit, a thumbnail image of the Start screen appears (click it to return to the Start screen).

The Windows Control Panel is now accessed through the Settings Charm from Desktop, or you can search for a specific setting within Control Panel from the Start screen.

So far WIndows 8 hasn't been nice to me . I wanted to upgrade an older XP license so I installed it beforehand and it upgraded itself to Windows 8 32bit which sucks because I have 8 gigs of RAM and my hardware fully supports 64bit. Also it becomes unresponsive a lot so that I have to force-shut-down, but I guess this is because the Apple BootCamp drivers are not updated yet. This will all work out though after my System Restore DVD arrives and I can reinstall a 64 bit version and skip the installation of the drivers until official ones are out.

Other than that I really like Win8. Nice trick with the start to desktop thing, got to admit I didn't know that task scheduler was this powerful...

There are still plenty of mystifying design choices. For example, I wanted to prevent the screen from turning off after a couple of minutes of non-use, and struggled to find the settings to do that. Turns out you can't do that in the "PC Settings" area, and only in the "normal" Windows settings area.

Splitting up settings now means having to look for the setting you want to change in two different places.

Many of the gestures have the same problem- you pretty much don't know the gesture or command is there unless someone tells you.

With Metro excised, Windows 8 visually and functionally becomes almost indistinguishable from Windows 7, and feels more like a 0.version incremental upgrade than a brand new OS. Which is one hell of an improvement over fighting against metro to be able to use the OS the way you're used to.

I lean more towards Apple, but I'm so glad that someone has come up with a brand-new UI paradigm. I tried Windows 8 out in a microsoft store last weekend and I really liked it. Rough around the edges? Maybe, but give this a few iterations and it will be totally slick.

(Having said that, the thing I like most about windows is that Tortoise SVN integrates with the OS on a deep level, and it will be a while before _that_ kind of thing gets the 'tile treatment')

One tip: don't try to click on the image that appears when hovering the mouse in the left corners. Just click the corner itself. It is easier and faster. The corners almost can't be missed. Just throw your mouse in the corner and click. Don't aim for the corner itself, but rather for the infinity large imagined space behind the corner.

One of the first things I did when testing Windows 8 was that I disabled my wired network connection to see if wireless works. I did it by clicking the network icon in the desktop tray, selecting the connection and eventually pressing 'disable'.

The connection disappeared from every place it was previously listed, and the only connection I can add is wireless. Even the search from start screen only finds wireless connection wizards/settings.

Anyone else having issues with Chrome? After I first installed Win8 and Chrome, I could not get the right click context menu to show up. A reboot fixed it. Now it won't let me login to Ars. The login pop-up is blank. Clean install, windows 7 works just dandy.

One of the first things I did when testing Windows 8 was that I disabled my wired network connection to see if wireless works. I did it by clicking the network icon in the desktop tray, selecting the connection and eventually pressing 'disable'.

The connection disappeared from every place it was previously listed, and the only connection I can add is wireless. Even the search from start screen only finds wireless connection wizards/settings.

Did you try unplugging the ethernet cable and plugging it back in? lol sorry, couldn't resist.

It's not an accident that mouse users are second-class citizens in Windows 8.

Nice how the RDF does not apply only to Apple: up to and including release, most tech sites, including Ars itself, boldly proclaimed how Windows 8 was a no compromise solution and how mouse users weren't being turned into second class citizens - but rather that touch and mouse input were being given equal importance.

If a couple of hours of actually using Windows 8 wasn't proof enough such statements were utter BS, now the sources themselves are changing their tune.

As far as I'm concerned, the only "tip, trick and cure" for Windows 8 is: wipe and install a fresh copy of Windows 7. A good tablet OS does not a good PC OS make.

Was it too much for Microsoft to have a setting for "live in Desktop mode"?

I guess they felt people would just live in Win7 mode almost exclusively if they didn't do it. I'd hazard a guess that the majority of people that will live in desktop mode are, well, desktop users. I agree that it'd be nice to have the option but I can understand why they didn't do it. What they needed to do (and couldn't do as they needed this out the door sooner rather than later) is fully integrate all the desktop functions (control panel, etc.) into the Metro world so you could more or less never be drawn out of it should you use the start screen the majority of the time. It is a bit jarring to go from Metro to desktop in random situations but I bet there's a contingency for that in either a service pack or Win9. Overall though I actually prefer Win8 to Win7.

One annoying thing though is Xbox Music. Functionally it's inferior to Zune. I have to know to add folders to the library otherwise nothing will show up in "my music" in the program. I know I had to do the same thing in Zune in first setup but seems like it takes the ease of use out of the Metro app when I have to go to the desktop to do folder setup. Strange.

One thing I don't get is that they moved shut down, restart etc. out of start and into charms but left log off there.....

I'd rather they were all in one place but whatever.

I also wish they took the time to make metro apps support a half screen snap too. Very rarely do I need a window to be only 300 pixels big. Then the metro PDF app would actually be useful on the desktop. But no I'm stuck installing a 3rd party program.

What are the privacy implications of logging into a Microsoft account rather than just having a local account on the computer? Obviously any preferences or bookmarks shared through the account will be stored on a Microsoft server, which is covered by their privacy policy. Is that transfer of information secure or will it be visible e.g. on your local network?

Will your login (which equals your email address) be supplied to other computers claiming to be in your domain?

One thing I don't get is that they moved shut down, restart etc. out of start and into charms but left log off there.....

I'd rather they were all in one place but whatever.

I also wish they took the time to make metro apps support a half screen snap too. Very rarely do I need a window to be only 300 pixels big. Then the metro PDF app would actually be useful on the desktop. But no I'm stuck installing a 3rd party program.

Well, you can alt+f4, that's becoming my favorite way of doing it.

The pdf thing is terrible. PDFs are (I'd say) clearly a desktop productivity thing, and to kick users out of the desktop to a pdf that then they have to understand Windows 8 is the big leap for most new users. That's what tripped my wife up, that's why I downloaded foxit or whatever, and for what? PDF support? How is this not a solved thing in 2012? Even for tablet users - if they start by clicking on a pdf in desktop mode, they're probably in kbm mode on their Surface or whatever, why kick them back to the 'tablet' mode, even if they're more familiar with the transitions? It makes no sense. Word doesn't throw you into Metro when you click on a picture, etc.

I don't even see the point in paying to upgrade to Windows 8, or evening using it, if you are going to complain about it's shortcomings and go through all the trouble of modifying it just so that you can have a fancier version of Windows 7. Change just for the sake of change makes no sense to me. Just stick with Windows 7 until something that you like comes out. Windows 8 works wonderfully if you use it as Microsoft intended, without messing around with any of the settings, on either a touchscreen device or with keyboard and mouse. Just give it a try.

I've got Win8 on my desktop. Loved Win7, but installed Win8 (Enterprise Ed) primarily for the ability to do WinRT development. Yes, I could have used a VM or a dual-boot, etc. but its a waste of my time, that I could do other more fun things, to maintain multiple OS on the same device plus the myriad of different devices.

That being said, on a daily use, I hardly *ever* see any "Modern UI" pieces except the Start Screen and the Networking slide out (gotta connect to work VPN when I need it). Otherwise pretty much everything is done on the desktop. The StartInDesktop solution is pretty nice, there is also another hack or two, but the one here is the best. I just found that I don't really need to always been in the desktop, usually I'm clicking either Outlook or VS (2010 or 2012) from the Start Screen and being on my way.

I've not had any issues with Chrome, except that from the Start Screen it just likes to come up as a the Metro full-screen version, which is of course crap, so I just have it pinned to my Taskbar.

Speaking of the Taskbar, I've got the Control Panel pinned (although if you tend to do more key-shortcuts like Win-X, then this doesn't really need to be done) there along with all my most useful apps. I also did the 'All Apps shortcut' hack to pin that to my Taskbar and Start Screen.

One annoying thing though is Xbox Music. Functionally it's inferior to Zune. I have to know to add folders to the library otherwise nothing will show up in "my music" in the program. I know I had to do the same thing in Zune in first setup but seems like it takes the ease of use out of the Metro app when I have to go to the desktop to do folder setup. Strange.

Libraries in Windows aggregate content for all apps on the system... Since Windows 7, adding folders to your music collection using Microsoft's native media players (Zune, WMP, WMC) adds them your Windows Music Library under the hood... and WMP just invokes the Windows Library management interface directly for doing this. The Zune client preserved an option to manage its libraries separately from Windows, but this was purely a legacy feature.

With Xbox Music, the default model is cloud-based collection management. Your "My Music" collection is stored in the cloud and available on all of your devices. If you have an Xbox Music pass and a persistent Internet connection, there is no need even to download media; you can stream it directly from the service at any time.

I used to download Zune Pass music to multiple PCs in order to have the same content available. Then you'd have to sync the content to your phone separately. This new approach simply blows this out of the water. Your personally curated music collection "just shows up" on all of your devices. I'm not sure that a lot of people have really clued into what Microsoft is doing here, but its pretty cool.

PowerDesk is the answer - it has a quick-launch bar that can replace the Start menu. I've used this file manager since the mid-1990s. I don't normally promote or endorse software, but this program is worth every penny, and I don't normally say that about any software.

Microsoft Surface - Hey, this is kinda cool. It's sorta like Windows but I can use it on a tablet. I wish there was an intro app that played after you created your first account to show you all these gestures. They're really not discoverable by accident, and I'm still not sure I've found all the hidden menus. I keep accidentally rearranging the start menu when I'm trying to swipe. I keep launching random apps when trying to swipe.

Launching the built in game app started loading giving me some choices for games, then a blank popup appeared suddenly with a loading indicator that totally prevented me from doing anything else, even going back to the start menu. After about 60 seconds it finally revealed itself to be an Xbox license agreement that it wanted me to agree to that apparently was a bit slow to load.

Running Windows 8 on a 1 year old laptop - Oh what the hell? I'm flipping back and forth between what looks like two totally different operating systems depending on which app I'm trying to use. Metro mode IE is useless for a few sites I use because of its policies on Flash and (useful) popups, so I'm back to desktop mode for them. For some reason the gestures aren't getting recognized with 100% accuracy on my trackpad, so I'm repeatedly re-swiping to get things to happen.

I totally fail to see the logic in swiping down from the top of the screen makes something appear at the bottom of the screen. Upgrading from a previous Windows 7 install that had a ton of apps results in a start menu that is 5 pages wide, in no discernible order. Either it's automatically moving things around based on what it thinks are my most used apps, or I'm dragging things around unintentionally because apps aren't staying put. I have several apps called "Uninstall" that I have no idea what app they're going to uninstall because they're no longer in folders like the W7 start menu.

I want to pop up the calculator to add some stuff up in a metro app. The calculator is a desktop app, not a metro app. I can't make the calculator appear over top of the metro app. I do some digging and see that there's a way of doing a "split screen" on full screen apps, but you still can't do that between a metro and non-metro app.

Windows Server 2012 over RDP - Kill me now. Every time I try swiping from the sides, I end up resizing my remote desktop window instead. I know there are keyboard shortcuts, but if I don't know where the thing is I'm looking for I surely have no idea what the shortcut is. I'm sure I'll get better in time, but all the changes here seem like change for the sake of change.

The Server Manager app is... bad. The most telling thing is when you click "What's New" and it shows you some this entirely unhelpful page that's cut off both on the left and the right because they haven't yet discovered word-wrap.

This is even weirder because the thing you just clicked on is off to the left of that window, so to go back to where you were you have to realize that you're actually still on the same page, you just need to scroll left to get back to your original choices before you decided to see What's New.

Server Manager also has long periods where it doesn't look like it's doing anything after you click something. Either nothing changes or you get a blank window while something is loading. No loading indicator/throbber/etc. A lot of panes in there inexplicably scroll left-right rather than up/down, which makes my scroll wheel on my mouse feel left out of the fun.

I don't mean to sound like I'm pooping all over Microsoft's Windows 8 party, but for the Desktop versions of the new interface they've failed pretty hard on discoverability and any kind of intuitive controls. I congratulate them on making a pretty decent tablet OS, but they should have stopped there.

When will people realize that the start menu is not the whole OS?I mean, its not that the desktop was gone.

It remembers me when my dad asked me to return to its win98-style start menu, in all of it's tree madness (occupying 3/4th of the screen), rather than keeping the windows vista start menu. He said he couldn't find his programs, even when he was aware of the search function.

Serious question, I have Office 2007, will it (or any other non-metro apps) appear on the new Start screen, or do I have to drop to the desktop to launch it? I'm perfectly happy with 2007 so won't be paying to upgrade to 2013 just so it appears on the new start screen.

Serious question, I have Office 2007, will it (or any other non-metro apps) appear on the new Start screen, or do I have to drop to the desktop to launch it? I'm perfectly happy with 2007 so won't be paying to upgrade to 2013 just so it appears on the new start screen.

Anything you install should have the ability to be a shortcut on the start screen. You may have to right click and pin it to the start screen though.

Serious question, I have Office 2007, will it (or any other non-metro apps) appear on the new Start screen, or do I have to drop to the desktop to launch it? I'm perfectly happy with 2007 so won't be paying to upgrade to 2013 just so it appears on the new start screen.

Yes, non-metro apps appear, similar to how the Administrative tools appear:

One annoying thing though is Xbox Music. Functionally it's inferior to Zune. I have to know to add folders to the library otherwise nothing will show up in "my music" in the program. I know I had to do the same thing in Zune in first setup but seems like it takes the ease of use out of the Metro app when I have to go to the desktop to do folder setup. Strange.

Libraries in Windows aggregate content for all apps on the system... Since Windows 7, adding folders to your music collection using Microsoft's native media players (Zune, WMP, WMC) adds them your Windows Music Library under the hood... and WMP just invokes the Windows Library management interface directly for doing this. The Zune client preserved an option to manage its libraries separately from Windows, but this was purely a legacy feature.

With Xbox Music, the default model is cloud-based collection management. Your "My Music" collection is stored in the cloud and available on all of your devices. If you have an Xbox Music pass and a persistent Internet connection, there is no need even to download media; you can stream it directly from the service at any time.

I used to download Zune Pass music to multiple PCs in order to have the same content available. Then you'd have to sync the content to your phone separately. This new approach simply blows this out of the water. Your personally curated music collection "just shows up" on all of your devices. I'm not sure that a lot of people have really clued into what Microsoft is doing here, but its pretty cool.

And, on an unrelated note; is it possible to upgrade a laptop display to 1366x768 from 1280x800? I can replace the display no problem, but how to find the right display seems mind-boggling. I know of about three or four sites to get laptop displays (I use them for my customers' broken displays), but how to cross-reference?? Thanks.

The fact that Ars publishes a 3-page guide that tells users how to do complicated things such as shut down and start and switch apps in Windows 8 tells me all I need to know about the UI. The sad part is that based on my personal experience with the RTM trial version, this guide is necessary.

30 years of Windows UI consistency has been thrown out and why? I'm not talking about the Start menu which I have no great attachment to but the introduction of new gestures to invoke commands, hot corners and the so-called Charms. Those weren't added to Windows 8 because they make things easier on the desktop - they make things worse - but because they work on mobile devices. The reason the Metro Start screen is baked into Windows 8 and Microsoft itself doesn't let you bypass it is that it is trying to turn all Windows developers into Windows tablet developers. Making Metro an integral part of Windows 8 is an attempt to force all Windows developers into writing apps that are suitable for mobile devices even if those apps and their UI conventions are unsuitable for the desktop (all Metro apps are full screen on my 2560x1600 30" monitor - really?). This is a cynical play where they are deliberately degrading the desktop experience for what the company perceives is the future and I want no part of it. All their quadrillion hours of testing, data mining and user experience feedback must have clued them in that Windows 8 was appreciably worse for the vast vast vast majority of non-touch users yet they went ahead with the changes anyway because taking care of the Windows user lost out to future mobile hegemony. I'm personally not going to voluntarily degrade my computer experience so Microsoft can take a shortcut to making its tablet and phone ecosystem more attractive.

As an aside, it's also interesting that Apple is criticized - legitimately - for its controlling habits and tendencies to tell people what to do yet lots of folks are seemingly fine with Microsoft forcing them to relearn fundamental UI techniques as well as to buy new touch hardware to compensate for the now-degraded Windows on desktop experience. I object to Microsoft deliberately making Windows worse for existing users to suit a corporate goal that's irrelevant to my needs as a desktop OS user. I would have thought making your product better for ALL its users would have been the way to attract customer loyalty and developer interest but I guess this is creaky old-fashioned thinking unsuitable for the brave new world of Windows 8 courtesy of Ballmer and Sinofsky. Actually, I take that back - using your monopoly position in the OS market to leverage your way into another market is an old routine from the Microsoft playbook.

A few things I didn't see here (but may have overlooked with my 21st century attention span):

- Alt-tab cycles through all open Metro apps and desktop apps, whereas Win-tab cycles only through Metro apps (of which the desktop with any open programs makes up one slot)- Another way to shutdown options is ctrl-alt-del to reveal the 'power' icon- Winkey-number still launches the corresponding programs from the taskbar, also works while at the start screen.

One annoying thing though is Xbox Music. Functionally it's inferior to Zune. I have to know to add folders to the library otherwise nothing will show up in "my music" in the program. I know I had to do the same thing in Zune in first setup but seems like it takes the ease of use out of the Metro app when I have to go to the desktop to do folder setup. Strange.

Libraries in Windows aggregate content for all apps on the system... Since Windows 7, adding folders to your music collection using Microsoft's native media players (Zune, WMP, WMC) adds them your Windows Music Library under the hood... and WMP just invokes the Windows Library management interface directly for doing this. The Zune client preserved an option to manage its libraries separately from Windows, but this was purely a legacy feature.

With Xbox Music, the default model is cloud-based collection management. Your "My Music" collection is stored in the cloud and available on all of your devices. If you have an Xbox Music pass and a persistent Internet connection, there is no need even to download media; you can stream it directly from the service at any time.

I used to download Zune Pass music to multiple PCs in order to have the same content available. Then you'd have to sync the content to your phone separately. This new approach simply blows this out of the water. Your personally curated music collection "just shows up" on all of your devices. I'm not sure that a lot of people have really clued into what Microsoft is doing here, but its pretty cool.

I get what they're doing and I like it. I simply meant that when I start Xbox Music under "my music" there is nothing unless I add whatever folder my music is in to the library. The issue is you don't have a prompt to let you add folders you just have to go do it yourself. I had to go to file explorer, right click on the folder I want added, and then add to the library. Once I did it all showed up in my music in the app. The Zune client prompted you to add folders from the get-go if I'm not mistaken. This just seems like a backwards way of doing it. Why not let the app search out what folders I have music in and let me pick and choose what to add? This in Metro / out of Metro experience seems a bit disjointed. Once they're added though yes it's very cool what they're doing. This is just getting the app to the point where my music shows up to begin with. I just expected more simplicity with the app. Maybe I'm not understanding what your response meant though.

When will people realize that the start menu is not the whole OS?I mean, its not that the desktop was gone.

It remembers me when my dad asked me to return to its win98-style start menu, in all of it's tree madness (occupying 3/4th of the screen), rather than keeping the windows vista start menu. He said he couldn't find his programs, even when he was aware of the search function.

When will you realise that dispite the desktop is not gone the overall experience degradate for some people? I for sure tried to use Windows 8 as it is. It sucked to me. If i want to open Notepad i dont want to open start screen on a 27'' 1440p tile screen just to achieve that. Besides having the start button menu with the apps with the pin and recent program related files is a really great experience to me.

So as the user experience is horrible, i just installed start8. Lovely. I really love Windows 8 desktop enhacements. I dont mind from time to time to go to Metro. I enjoy the xbox music, altough i think that zune desktop app should become xbox music desktop app. I dont like the future of RT for Desktop apps.

Sean Gallagher / Sean is Ars Technica's IT Editor. A former Navy officer, systems administrator, and network systems integrator with 20 years of IT journalism experience, he lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland.